The ever increasing density of components used in electronic packaging, such as those used for computers and the like, wrought by the development of integrated circuits, has created the need for power connectors to carry the power required by densely spaced logic and memory components. U.S. Pat. No. 4,755,145, teaches an electrically connecting circuit board system featuring bus bars on the upper surface of a backplane board which are engaged by fork-like contacts mounted on a daughter board. In this way, power is supplied to a daughter board to supply components on such board with power. The bus bars utilized in the patented system are open with the mating fork-like contacts shrouded in a housing. Multiple bus bars are positioned side by side on the backplane board to carry different power levels in terms of voltage and current and the bus bars are made relatively heavy in terms of current capacity. As compared with the solid bus bars of the system, the individual contacts on the daughter board are relatively small and fragile.
It is an object to provide a power connector for interconnecting the power required by circuit boards and the like through a connector without an exposed bus bar on the surface of a backplane board by using a connector insulated with respect to such backplane board.
It is still a further object to provide a power connector that operates to distribute substantial current levels through multiple contact points to circuits such as printed circuit boards to minimize resistance heating caused by high level current with respect to the thin foil power and ground paths in or on circuits such as those used with printed circuit boards.